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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27469027">u n h a u n t e d</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendernoncompliant/pseuds/gendernoncompliant'>gendernoncompliant</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Haven (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Hopeful Ending, Childhood Trauma, Episode: s05e08 Exposure, Hurt/Comfort, Missing Scene, Multi, Pre-Relationship, canon traumatic backstory, season 5, sexual trauma (mention)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 18:42:55</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,275</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27469027</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/gendernoncompliant/pseuds/gendernoncompliant</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Nathan’s no good with words; never has been. But he doubts there’s anything either of them could say in this moment that Duke would actually accept—no platitude or reassurance that he wouldn’t shrug off or find a way to twist backwards into a joke. So, they wait. And Duke marches ahead like he’s trying to push through it as quickly as he can stand to. Part of Nathan almost wishes Audrey hadn’t convinced Duke to tell the story.</p><p>But if Mara was going to hear it, then they needed to too.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Duke Crocker/Audrey Parker/Nathan Wuornos</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>u n h a u n t e d</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/Parker_Haven_Wuornos/gifts">Parker_Haven_Wuornos</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>So, this fic goes into Duke's very messed up history with his mother, but not in any more detail than done in canon. It is discussed, but largely in vague terms. I lifted a little bit of dialogue directly from the episode, but most of it has been altered to fit a different context.<br/>-<br/>This fic would not exist without Parker_Haven_Wuornos and her brilliant idea to frame this episode in such a way that we as the audience see Duke tell this story to Audrey instead of Mara.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>It turns out, being a ghost isn’t all too different from being alive for Nathan Wuornos. He is, after all, used to not being able to touch anything. (Of course, the <em>phasing through</em> part is new. And annoying.)</p><p>There is something uncomfortably voyeuristic about the whole ghost thing, though. Something very <em>It’s a Wonderful Life</em>, ghost of Christmas Present to it. Standing unseen in his own office, watching Duke and Audrey talk about him, he can’t help but feel like he’s intruding, somehow. Like he stumbled into the wrong part of the story. Like he isn’t supposed to be here, yet. Maybe being dead is just one big anachronism there is no name for.</p><p>Of course, Nathan isn’t dead.</p><p>At least, he really hopes he isn’t dead.</p><p>He can’t even seem to properly haunt the place. None of the classics—no flickering lights, disembodied voices, knocks in the walls, fluttering of curtains. Nothing. No, he just gets to hover in the corner by his desk like the world’s most boring peeping tom.</p><p>“What did Mara want?” Audrey asks Duke.</p><p>Duke straightens up almost immediately—goes cagey and uncomfortable in a muted way that Audrey doesn’t seem to clock. “Doesn’t matter,” he says, sidestepping the question before ploughing ahead like she never asked it at all.</p><p>“Hey—” Nathan tries to interrupt, only to remember that he’s merely a spectator in this particular conversation. He rolls his eyes and settles back on his spectral heels and hopes Audrey circles back to it eventually. He doesn’t like the look on Duke’s face. And the more time they spend with Mara, the more he’s starting to think that maybe she ought to fall into the category of ‘<em>we don’t negotiate with terrorists</em>’.</p><p>They don’t have time to dig into it, because Seth Byrne sweeps the place like a tropical storm. He talks a mile a minute, paces the room, points a glow-in-the-dark Walkman in Nathan’s face, and then disappears just as quick as he appeared.</p><p>And then it’s just the three of them.</p><p>Nathan’s never exactly been chatty, but the quiet in that room is suffocating. Duke and Audrey look like they’re running on fumes. Duke drags a chair in front of Audrey’s desk and slumps heavily into it. Audrey, on the other hand, can’t seem to sit down or sit still. She rifles through her paperwork as though there might be an answer tucked underneath waves of parking tickets and noise complaints.</p><p>Running a hand over his face, Duke sighs, “She won’t help us unless we give her what she wants.”</p><p>Bracing herself on the desk, Audrey purses her lips and concedes, “Okay. Well, then maybe we should consider giving her a little of what she wants.”</p><p>That same hushed anxiety overtakes Duke all over again. He rocks forward in his seat, elbows braced on his knees, suddenly intent.</p><p>“Audrey, we can’t trust her.”</p><p>Duke obfuscates. He avoids. He’s graceful about it, good at it, but Nathan recognizes it for what it is. And he desperately wants to know what it is that Duke seems so damn eager to sidestep.</p><p>“I <em>don’t</em> trust her,” Audrey insists. She softens, then—looks at Duke with an expression so gentle and cracked open that it leaves Nathan electric with embarrassment. Whatever this is, he isn’t supposed to be part of it.</p><p>“I don’t trust her,” she repeats, voice soft. “But I trust you.”</p><p>Duke practically crumbles. And really, Nathan can’t blame him. He tries to cling to his denial, but it’s a weak and floundering thing. “This isn’t a good idea,” he murmurs. “We know what she’s like. Anything we say, she’s gonna use against us.”</p><p>Audrey looks so tired. “Look,” she says, “I don’t like negotiating with her any more than you do, alright? But if it means getting Nathan back, isn’t it worth it?”</p><p>Duke looks away. For half a second, Nathan expects him to say no.</p><p>“Yeah,” he agrees. He’s tense all over. “Yeah, of course it is.”</p><p>Finally, Audrey seems to recognize the subtext of Duke’s hesitation.</p><p>“What aren’t you telling me?” She asks.</p><p>Duke makes it a point not to look her in the eyes when he mumbles a less than convincing, “It’s nothing.” For a career criminal, he’s a piss poor liar when it matters. (Nathan wonders, with a pang of sudden and unwanted guilt, if that’s always been true.)</p><p>Audrey just waits. Duke’s good at talking himself out of anything, but he’s no good with silence. He bends and bends and bends until finally—</p><p>“She asked about my mom,” he concedes. Just as quickly, however, he brushes past it. “It’s fine. You’re right. I’ll talk to her.”</p><p>He moves as if to get to his feet, but Audrey leans across the desk and catches his arm. “Hey, hold on,” she says. “Why would Mara care about your mom?”</p><p>Unnaturally still, Duke puffs a halfhearted laugh through his nose and offers her an unconvincing smile. “Beats me,” he says.</p><p>“No, Duke, I’m serious.” Audrey holds his gaze and eventually he lowers himself back into his seat. “What about your mom?”</p><p>Duke picks at his fingernails and stares at the desk instead of at Audrey. His knee bounces erratically even as he tries to visibly remove the tension from his shoulders.</p><p>“I, uh, don’t think I really want to have this conversation sober.” He means it as a joke, but it falls flat.</p><p>A kind of gloom settles over the office, so heady and palpable that even Nathan—incorporeal and entirely numb—can’t escape it.</p><p>Finally seeming to have lost her urge to pace, Audrey lowers herself into her chair. She reaches across the table briefly to squeeze Duke’s hand but retreats back into her own space quickly enough.</p><p>Looking at him, it’s hard to tell if Duke’s in the process of building a wall or tearing one down.</p><p>“Anything you tell her, she could use against you, right?” Audrey reminds him as gently as she can. “We <em>all</em> ought to be ready for that.”</p><p>“Yeah.”</p><p>It strikes Nathan that he hardly knows anything about Duke’s mother, either, despite growing up together. She was never around. Duke didn’t talk about her. Nathan didn’t ask.</p><p>Judging by the haunted look in Duke’s eye, Nathan’s realizing that maybe he should have asked.</p><p>But after he lost his own mother, Nathan didn’t make a habit out of asking after anyone else’s.</p><p>Carding both hands through his hair, Duke blows out a long puff of breath as if trying to center himself. He doesn’t seem able to hold eye contact. He catches Audrey’s gaze only to drop it, eager to look anywhere else.</p><p>Nathan hates the way the discomfort hangs on him. Duke’s not like this. Duke’s all easy smiles and loose shoulders. It’s the thing that always frustrated Nathan the most: how he never took anything seriously, how every kind of hurt just rolled off his back.</p><p>But that’s not the Duke sitting in front of Audrey, right now. This Duke is raw and exposed and unsettled.</p><p>A false flippancy to his voice, Duke finally starts.</p><p>“She and Dad split when I was little. Ugly breakup. Screaming, slamming doors, breaking dishes, the whole shebang. I only kinda remember it, to be honest. I don’t even think they got a divorce; she just bounced. Took off and stayed gone.”</p><p>“Jeez,” Audrey says. “Duke, I’m sorry—”</p><p>“Don’t,” Duke interrupts with a chuckle that none of them believe. “Or we’re never gonna get through this.” He refocuses, resettles in his chair. “Anyway. Dad kicked the bucket when I was eight. State tried to have me declared an orphan.”</p><p>“Tried?”</p><p>“Took too long with the paperwork.” Duke clicks his teeth. His hand carves an arc through the air. “Mom rolled through. Said she wanted to, uh, reunite the family.” For all that he seems to be aiming for ‘airy irreverence’, he’s too stiff. Too tight around the eyes. Crossing his arms, he directs a pinched smile down at his lap. “I was a stupid kid. Got my hopes up.”</p><p>Audrey looks like she wants to say something. She opens her mouth only to close it again and stares grimly down at her desk.</p><p>Nathan’s no good with words; never has been. But he doubts there’s anything either of them could say in this moment that Duke would actually accept—no platitude or reassurance that he wouldn’t shrug off or find a way to twist backwards into a joke.</p><p>So, they wait. And Duke marches ahead like he’s trying to push through it as quickly as he can stand to.</p><p>Part of Nathan almost wishes Audrey hadn’t convinced Duke to tell the story.</p><p>But if Mara was going to hear it, then they needed to too.</p><p>Duke stares out the window to Audrey’s left instead of at her. He wears a vacant, painted on smile. The false levity in his voice rings hollow.</p><p>“Didn’t take a genius to figure out I was just Mom’s next meal ticket.”</p><p>Audrey sucks in a breath through her teeth but doesn’t interrupt him. Nathan can see the tension in the line of her shoulders, though. If he could feel his own body, he’d probably find the posture mirrored in himself.</p><p>“Took her about two weeks to turn the place into a flophouse.”</p><p> </p><p>(Nathan remembers suddenly a scrawny, rail-thin, 9-year-old Duke Crocker standing outside his window at two in the morning, looking small and furious and cold.</p><p>“Can I sleep over?” He asked. “There’s a weird guy at my house.”</p><p>At the time, Nathan thought it must be Duke’s mom’s boyfriend or something. He hadn’t asked questions; he’d just helped pull Duke over the sill and into the room. It wasn’t the first time it happened. It wasn’t the last. In retrospect, “There are too many people at my place,” was the kind of thing Duke said a lot, when they were kids. It was the kind of thing Nathan didn’t think about, because adults were strange and unknowable, and they did lots of things Nathan didn’t understand.</p><p>He tries to tell himself that he didn’t know—couldn’t know—what was happening to Duke, back then. He was just a kid.</p><p>But so was Duke.)</p><p> </p><p>“She did <em>what</em>?” Audrey balks, apparently unable to hold her polite silence any longer.</p><p>Duke waves a hand as if it’s nothing, something as inconsequential as missing a parent-teacher meeting. Nathan wonders if he’s ever really allowed himself to be <em>angry</em>. Well and truly angry. He was when they were kids; there was a point in their lives when Nathan couldn’t stand to be around the lit fuse Duke had become. For a long time, Duke was volatile and vindictive.</p><p>But Nathan thinks that maybe when Duke left Haven, he buried it. All of it. Somewhere dark and deep and untouchable. He can’t help but wonder if Duke ever gave himself permission to look at it and tell himself that it was <em>wrong</em>. That he deserved better.</p><p>Nathan’s relationship with his own father wasn’t exactly idyllic. He doesn’t have the high ground when it comes to processing childhood trauma. But at least the Chief had been around to butt heads with, to get mad at, to air out the pent up hurt and frustration.</p><p>And maybe that wasn’t any better. But Nathan can’t imagine bottling it the way Duke has.</p><p>It’s not even <em>his</em> history and Nathan still feels like a shaken soda can, ready to burst.</p><p>Duke continues his story with the same performative glibness as before, although he watches Audrey with a curious, cautious expression—like a moonflower considering whether or not to bloom.</p><p>“Protective services shut down her whole operation pretty quick. She didn’t really stick around after that.” He shrugs. “Showed up once a month to collect the welfare checks.”</p><p>God bless Audrey Parker. God bless her righteous fury, her unrestrained disgust. God bless the way she fights for the people who matter to her, the way she looks like she’d crawl backwards through time itself if it meant getting a swing in on the woman who did this to Duke.</p><p>Duke won’t let himself be angry, but Audrey will. She’ll be angry enough for the both of them.</p><p>Nathan loves her for that.</p><p>“She <em>took</em> them?” She practically snarls.</p><p>But Duke laughs; it’s an awful sound. “Well, she didn’t chip in on rent, that’s for sure.”</p><p>“How did you pay the bills?”</p><p>Duke shies away from the question. “I figured it out,” he says. “Until, you know. I didn’t.”</p><p> </p><p>(As though struck by lightning, Nathan’s slapped with the memory of the first time he found Duke selling liquor under the bleachers at school. He’d been angry—not so much that Duke was committing a crime, but that he was keeping a secret, that he was leaning into a part of himself Nathan didn’t recognize or like very much.</p><p>“You don’t get it,” Duke had grumbled while he carefully wrapped the bottles so they wouldn’t clink together in his backpack.</p><p>“Why didn’t you tell me?” Nathan insisted, charged with self-righteous anger.</p><p>Duke shoved him. Hard enough to make him stumble but not hard enough to knock him down. “Because you wouldn’t get it!” He’d snarled back. His voice cracked—the unoiled squeak of puberty that took all the gravitas out from under the words.</p><p>Shrugging his backpack on, he shouldered past Nathan without making eye contact. “Forget it.”</p><p>He was about to turn the corner and disappear from sight when he stopped dead in his tracks. Shoulders hunched, head hung low. His back to Nathan, his voice barely lifted above a whisper when he asked, “Please don’t tell your dad.”</p><p>They were fighting. At least, Nathan was pretty sure they were fighting. But he didn’t even have to think. “’Course not,” he promised. “Screw that guy.”</p><p>Back still turned to him, Nathan had watched Duke’s shoulders bounce in an inaudible little laugh. “Yeah,” Duke agreed. “Screw that guy.”)</p><p> </p><p>“I know you said you were homeless,” Audrey grits out, biting down on a quiet, ugly anger. “But I didn’t think your mom was <em>right fucking there</em>.”</p><p>Duke offers up a wry smile. “Honestly, I was probably better off homeless.”</p><p>Audrey doesn’t contradict him on that, even though Nathan gets the feeling she wants to. Instead, she asks, “And nobody helped you? Your teachers? The cops?”</p><p>Duke chuckles. “Oh yeah, bleeding heart Garland Wuornos really rallied to the cause.”</p><p>“He took Nathan in.”</p><p>“Yeah. He did.” Duke sighs and settles back in his chair. Offering a shrug, he says, “I get the feeling a lotta people looked the other way. Hindsight being 20/20 and all, I’m guessing the whole Crocker curse thing didn’t exactly help my case.”</p><p>Audrey makes a frustrated sound. “Yeah, ‘cause letting the kid with the Crocker curse grow up homeless was obviously the better option. Jesus Christ.”</p><p>Letting out a long breath, Duke pushes forward, “Anyway, when I turned 18 the welfare checks stopped coming to the house—and so did Mom.”</p><p>Audrey wears a disgusted expression. “<em>That</em> was the last time you saw your mother?”</p><p>Duke barks another one of those strangled, humorless laughs. “I wish.”</p><p>He almost seems to recoil from his own words. Nathan recognizes it: the regret on his face. He said too much. Showed his hand. He’s never really had the poker face he pretends to.</p><p>“Forget it,” Duke mumbles, shifting as if to get to his feet.</p><p>“Duke,” Audrey says. She pins him with a look that’s worried and open and unbearably kind—so much so that even Nathan struggles to look directly at her. “What happened.”</p><p>Biting the inside of his cheek, Duke slumps defeated back into the chair. It takes him a while to find his words. He fidgets, instead. Pops his knuckles, chews his lip.</p><p>“A few years ago,” he says. “I was doing a drop in Boston and thought I’d, you know. Stretch my legs. See the sights. And I’m walking downtown, and I turn this corner and—there she is.”</p><p>“Did she—” Audrey starts.</p><p>Duke shakes his head. “No.” There’s something awful about the unconvincing smile on his face: an emptiness behind his eyes that chills Nathan in a way the cold no longer can. “No, she, uh—she wanted to score some dope off me.”</p><p>“Jesus,” Audrey mutters, but it doesn’t slow Duke down. He keeps talking, as though snowballing towards something he’s never said out loud before.</p><p>“Didn’t have any money,” he says. His voice fractures. The humor gives way to something ugly and unnamable. “Said she’d be happy to pay me some other way.”</p><p> </p><p>(“Could’ve called Bill if you just wanted someone to get drunk with,” Nathan groused, sitting across from Duke on the deck of the Rouge.</p><p>Duke didn’t look at him. He stared at the water and sipped his whiskey.</p><p>“Yeah. Could’ve.”</p><p>Nathan taps his fingers against the glass just to listen to the resonant sound. Sounds mean more to him than they used to. He collects them. Two fingers of whiskey in Duke’s mismatched glassware rings just so. His work boots on the wooden deck thump different than the wooden dock. The water against the hull whispers low under their conversation, like it has secrets of its own.</p><p>Feeling by proxy, Claire called it, the one time he made the mistake of mentioning it in front of her. Associating sounds with the memory of how those things would feel.</p><p>He could pick up on more than he’d have expected. Canvas sounded rough, fallen leaves sounded brittle.</p><p>Duke sounded—</p><p>Tired.</p><p>Tired in a bone-deep, unshakeable way that didn’t suit him.</p><p>Staring down into his glass, Nathan asked, “So, why call me?”</p><p>Duke blew a short little laugh through his nose and hid his smile behind his glass.</p><p>“Because Bill would’ve asked what was wrong.”</p><p>Nathan prickled at the implication that <em>he</em> wouldn’t, despite the fact that he <em>hadn’t</em>. But Duke didn’t let him get wound up over it. He rolled his eyes and clinked their glasses together. The sound—bright and loud and tinny—pulled Nathan’s focus back.</p><p>“Relax, big guy,” Duke said, “Drink your whiskey. It’s expensive shit.”</p><p>If Nathan had asked, would Duke have told him? Or had he already buried it by the time he called, with no intention of ever digging it back up?)</p><p> </p><p>“Don’t look at me like that.”</p><p>Audrey looks like she’s been struck. Nathan knows Duke reads it as pity, but he’s not sure that’s what it really is. It’s horror—quiet and nauseous and grim. It’s the same horror that’s lodged itself in his own stomach.</p><p>Mara couldn’t have known exactly what it was she’s trying to unearth in Duke. But she must have been able to recognize the raw edges of a wound—must have known exactly where to go digging.</p><p>The idea that Duke’s going to have to say this all again and say it to <em>her</em>? It somehow makes everything even worse.</p><p>“Duke,” Audrey starts, floundering just a little for words. “I’m so sorry.”</p><p>“Don’t be.” Duke’s brusque and dismissive and evasive. “I’m sure she doesn’t even remember.”</p><p>“Fuck her,” Audrey snaps, so sharp and sudden it startles them both. “You remember.”</p><p>Duke stares at her for a moment before he finds his voice. “Yeah, well. They don’t call Crockers cursed for nothing, right?” He jokes, even if his voice comes out a little thin.</p><p>“No,” Audrey insists, furious and defiant. “No, that wasn’t some curse or fate or karma or some other handwavy bullshit. She—Jesus, Duke. She was your <em>mother</em>. And she failed you at every fucking turn. Over and over. You didn’t deserve that.” She shakes her head. “That’s no curse. Just a selfish, pathetic person.”</p><p>Duke’s jaw goes tight. He stares down at the floor. Again, his knee bounces as if of its own accord. He runs a hand through his hair. When he speaks, there’s a waver to it. “Thanks.” Swallowing, he wets his lips and mumbles, “You didn’t have to say all that.”</p><p>“Yeah, I did,” Audrey counters, crossing her arms. “And I could say a whole hell of a lot worse.” Allowing the tiniest hint of humor into her tone she adds, “But I try to make a point not to run around insulting other people’s mothers. Even when they’re really shitty ones.”</p><p>Duke glances away, but he’s wearing the closest thing to a real smile she’s seen on him all day. “I mean, it could be worse,” he says. “I could have been a foster kid.”</p><p>She manages a small but genuine smile and smacks his arm with one of the files from her desk.</p><p>“Hey! I was a foster kid!” She argues. “Well. The real Audrey Parker was. She turned out alright.”</p><p>Cocking his head, Duke squints and asks, “<em>Did she</em>, though? I mean, she is a fed.”</p><p>Audrey laughs and pins him with a damn near adoring smile. Nathan recognizes it; she aims one just like it at him, sometimes.</p><p>“I’ll get you for that,” she promises.</p><p>The brief moment of genuine humor melts backwards into the tar pit that is their entire situation. The gravity of their predicament resettles on their shoulders, pressing them down into their seats.</p><p>Shaking her head, Audrey taps her knuckles thoughtfully against the table. “But—okay. What good is any of this to Mara?”</p><p>Nathan had stood in the Rouge’s hold with Mara. He watched her pretend not to see him, watched her calculating her advantage in real time.</p><p>“She wants leverage,” Nathan says, even though the others can’t hear him. That’s the thing about Mara. She’s always a step ahead. She wants to know about Duke’s mother because she wants a shortcut into his head, under his skin. She’s <em>collecting</em>. Datamining. And Duke’s story is full of old wounds for her to pick at.</p><p>Duke shrugs. “Maybe she just thinks it’s fun. We’re the ants and she’s the magnifying glass.”</p><p>“I don’t like this.” Audrey’s face creases with a frown. Shaking her head, she says, “No. This is too much. We can’t give her this. We’ll figure out something else.”</p><p>Duke looks almost offended. “Audrey, I can handle it.”</p><p>“I know you can.” Her words ring both exasperated and sincere. Sighing, she softens. “I know you can,” she repeats. “But she is so—sadistic. I’ve been in her head, remember? I’ve <em>been</em> her. I don’t want to find out what she can do with this. What she can do to you.”</p><p>Suddenly, after so long wound up, Duke looks utterly at peace. He reaches across the desk to take her hand. “She can’t do anything to me,” he promises, so completely sure. “I’ve got you.”</p><p>Audrey hesitates, but Nathan can see her squeeze Duke’s fingers.</p><p>“I don’t know.”</p><p>“Hey,” Duke murmurs, his voice gone low and warm. “It’s for Nathan. He’s worth it.”</p><p>Again, the feeling that he’s intruding on something he isn’t supposed to see—except this time, it brings with it something steadying and familiar: an old, old feeling he thought he was on the other side of.</p><p>God damn if there hasn’t always been something special about Duke Crocker.</p><p> </p>
<hr/><p> </p><p>When Nathan phases through the metal hull of the hold, Mara barely looks surprised at all. She cocks her head at him: a lion sizing up its prey.</p><p>“What are you doing here?” She asks in that unsettling, singsong way of hers.</p><p>Nathan hovers at the edge of the room, uninterested in getting any closer to her despite the fact that she couldn’t hurt him even if she wanted to.</p><p>“Chaperoning,” he retorts, dry and caustic.</p><p>She barks an unfriendly laugh. “Aw, that’s sweet,” she purrs. “And who’s my date to the dance?”</p><p>Above them, the sound of Duke’s boots thumping back and forth through what Nathan’s fairly sure is the kitchen.</p><p>When he doesn’t answer her, she rolls her eyes and puffs a lock of hair out of her face. “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” She drawls. “I heard ghosts have been dropping double-dead lately.”</p><p>Nathan shrugs. “Won’t be long,” he says, following in the Duke Crocker school of sidestepping the question.</p><p>“You’d think a man who couldn’t feel would be more of a conversationalist.” Slumping in her seat, she rattles her cuffs. “Are you bringing <em>anything</em> to the table? My god.”</p><p>Nathan knows better than to monologue at her. He’s made that mistake before. She collects information. Metabolizes it. Weaponizes it.</p><p>“Don’t worry about me,” he says with a wooden smile. “It’ll be like I’m not even here.”</p><p>“He won’t <em>know</em> you’re here if I don’t tell him,” she snaps, her holier-than-thou, spider-with-a-fly veneer cracking for just a moment. She lurches forward, only to be stopped by the seat she’s chained to.</p><p>Nathan shrugs. “So, don’t tell him.”</p><p>She seethes. She can’t get a read on him and it’s under her skin. And that’s fine. That’s perfect. She can pick at and ponder his motives. Meanwhile, he’ll be here: listening to every word. Anything she says to Duke, she says to him. The game she’s playing ends today.</p><p>She casts him a suspicious look. “You’re a strange man, Nathan Wuornos.”</p><p>“That’s what they keep telling me.”</p><p>Mara’s pride is her real weakness. It doesn’t matter what they do, she thinks she’s better than them, smarter than them, stronger than them. And when she’s got them alone, she’s right.</p><p>But they aren’t alone.</p><p>It’s the three of them. It’s always been the three of them.</p><p>Duke steps into the hold carrying two glasses and a decanter of bourbon.</p><p>Nathan wouldn’t go so far as to call himself Duke’s guardian angel, but he stands over his shoulder the entire time.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Unrelated, but a quick note to anyone waiting on an update of "the only right i have wronged"--I'm 6000+ words into the last chapter! I know it's taking a really long time, but I'm working really hard to make sure it's the best possible version of itself for all of you. I promise that I'm working on it and that it hasn't been forgotten. I just needed to blow off some steam on some smaller and less high-stakes projects while i work through the last few hurdles in wishverse.</p><p>Thank you again!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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